Despite over 80 tax rises, an increase in NHS spending from £44 billion to £76 billion p.a. since 2000 and being promised that voting Labour would save the NHS, the key issue of ending the indignity of mixed-sex wards still continues.
The Guardian newspaper (link) summed it up on 10th May this week when a report conculded that 28 trusts still had not solved the problem:-
The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, admitted yesterday that thousands of NHS patients were being caused "great distress" by the government's failure to honour its 1997 manifesto commitment to eliminate mixed-sex wards in England.
An investigation by the health service's chief nurse found more than 16% of NHS acute hospital trusts were still struggling to provide single-sex accommodation.
The finding - disclosed in a report yesterday from the Department of Health - appeared to contradict ministerial statements to parliament in January 2003 assuring MPs that 95% of trusts had met the target. Last year Ms Hewitt said 99% of trusts provided single-sex accommodation in general wards, including single-sex bathrooms and toilets. 28 trusts which are finding the target of eliminating mixed-sex accommodation "challenging".
Other coverage is here (link) and here (link).
This scandal affects both men and women equally and for this idignity to still be happening in the 21st century shows how awful the NHS management is. They treat people as numbers not as individuals.
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